{"id":2073,"date":"2022-03-12T19:38:04","date_gmt":"2022-03-12T20:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malvinartley.com\/blog.malvinartley.com\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2022-03-12T19:41:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-12T20:41:13","slug":"the-russian-intervention-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malvinartley.com\/blog.malvinartley.com\/2022\/03\/12\/the-russian-intervention-in-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Russian intervention in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

What experience and history teach is this \u2014 that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it. (Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History<\/em> (1832)<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the 24th<\/sup> of February the world has been riveted on events in Ukraine. Since no one wanted to listen to Lavrov and Russia\u2019s security concerns, the Ukrainian military is dealing with Shoigu now. The suffering in Ukraine is great as a result of the Russian military operation taking place there. But few people in the West, for instance, have been made aware of or care about the fratricidal civil war between the western and far eastern parts of Ukraine that has raged since 2014<\/a><\/span>, where there has been commensurate suffering, and at the hands of other Ukrainians. That was one of the primary causes for the present conflict. This current military action by the Russians is not at all as it is being portrayed in the Western media. For more, read on\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a two-part post, the first dealing with the conflict itself and the 2nd<\/sup> dealing with the propaganda war. The latter is more destructive than the former. I will state at the outset I am anti-war, but at the same time I am not a pacifist. Actions that will negatively impact the lives of countless millions of people need to be called out before they precipitate in wars, like what we are seeing in Ukraine, and aggravated by what we are witnessing in Western media and social media. Much of what follows will be dismissed as disinformation, Russian propaganda, pro-Russian, even anti-American\/NATO\/Ukrainian \u2013 take your pick.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, in the heat of the emotions, reasoned analysis is abandoned and few people will want to take the time to examine the context and the causes for the conflict we see splattered across our media now. What is presented here is the result of my attempt to make sense of this terrible event over the course of the conflict thus far. There is no single party at fault here, and plenty of blame to go around, with a history that stretches back at least a century. Take from this what you will, or not. I have no interest in debating points. If you feel the mainstream narrative leaves something to be desired, take time, meditate and seek understanding. Extra links to videos and articles are listed at the end of each post.<\/span><\/p>\n

We all pray and meditate for the innocents in Ukraine, including Russian Ukrainians and a quick end to the war there. We need to pray for the Russians, too, believe it or not, and for all people caught up in a conflict from which the causes have been hidden from the public view. However, the world \u2013 most especially the Western world \u2013 is being subjected to the most intensive battle of all, the psychological battle being waged to manufacture consent for actions that will go against our own national and personal interests, and are already causing quite negative effects on national economies already brittle from the COVID crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gas and energy prices are going through the roof, and going higher, for example. And this is only the beginning and the smallest part of it. And to be clear, we are not suffering under these higher prices because of the Russians or to promote freedom, support Ukraine or to \u2018stick it to the Russians\u2019. It is better for us if we can wake up and smell the coffee, forcing a change in destructive policies by our own governments, while we can still get that coffee.<\/span><\/p>\n

We start our investigations with a human rhetorical example. The cause for this Russian intervention in Ukraine can be explained in human terms in a few lines:<\/span><\/p>\n

Suppose there was a group of people who did not agree with your views and who constantly refused to listen to you and at times threatened you. Suppose you knew this group\u2019s ultimate aim was to seize your property, to do away with you, and then one day they amassed a group on the border of your property and threatened to overrun it and kill your family and friends. Would you just roll over and let them do it, or would you make certain they never threatened you again? The answer in human terms is pretty obvious. One would fight, with everything one had. This scenario is analogous to what the Russians saw coming on the 23rd<\/sup> of February. This is the Russian view, whether we agree or not. Western media whitewashes and suppresses this view except in a few rare cases (see videos at the end of this post and the end of the 2nd<\/sup> part).<\/span><\/p>\n

As a result of the threats Russia was facing, they acted, and we see the results daily on our TVs and plastered across our media. All we see in the media in the West is that Russia attacked Ukraine. And from the vast majority of comments I have seen in social media there is no comment addressing the Russian side or attempts to understand. Even worse, there is no desire<\/em> to understand. Instead what we see is \u2018Russia bad, Putin evil, end of story\u2019. Just why did the Russians intervene in Ukraine, then? I had stated elsewhere, along with many other commenters with far more knowledge than I that I didn\u2019t think there was going to be a war. There were things I did not know at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the fighting has erupted captured documents<\/a><\/span> revealed the Ukrainians had planned to overrun the Donbas early this month (March 2022). Yes, documents can be forged. It is an old propaganda trick. We just had an example of that here in Italy, an allegedly official government document calling on men of a certain age to register for military service to be sent thereafter to Ukraine. I hope the perpetrator was caught and is facing charges. I am in no position to confirm or refute the documents in possession of the Russians, but if they are true they confirm other factors that led to the conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the days before the intervention, Washington kept pushing the Russian invasion narrative, amping up the threat level, misrepresenting the Russian troop movements within Russia\u2019s borders, all the while never telling the public that from 60,000 to 125,000 Ukrainian troops (the latter higher figure being half of Ukraine\u2019s active army) had been massed on the line of contact in the Donbas.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Russians were not overly concerned about that initially, thinking it to be a repeat of what we saw in April of last year, thinking they could again convince Kiev it was not a good idea to do such a foolish thing. But then things began to change over the course of a few days, and drastically. There were several triggers for the present military intervention:<\/span><\/p>\n